Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Not thousands, we recruit in lakhs: LIC Chairman

The size does matter when it comes to employment generation at a time when companies are wielding axe on jobs, as insurance giant LIC today said it would employ 11 lakh more agents by March 2011 to double its field workforce."They (private insurers) are talking about 30,000. We are talking about 11-12 lakh and that is the difference. (In) three years, we want to double the number of agents," LIC Chairman T S Vijayan told PTI on comparison with private sector competitors in terms of hiring plans."We don't talk about thousands. We talk about lakhs. Last year, we ended with 11 lakh plus agents and we would like to increase it by a minimum 25 per cent by March, 2009. This is a target we have taken ourselves and I think we will be able to do it," he said.

During the current year, the country's largest insurer recruited about two lakh insurance agents across the length and breadth of the country.

This excludes hiring plans for development officers, he clarified, saying that during the current financial year alone, LIC has recruited 4,500 officers and the next year the number could go up by up to 5,000.

Currently, LIC has about 24,000 development officers across the country.

To compete with LIC, private life insurers are also recruiting agents to expand their businesses and reach, but the numbers are much less than the largest player.

For example, Reliance Life is in the process of adding 90,000 agents and 2,500 managers, while Metlife and Max New York Life would increase advisors' strength by 30,000 agents by the end of the current fiscal.